WHO HAD A SERPENT IN HIS HEART! Pennant, of Bychton, and brother of the worthy William, the inftrument of prefages to our kingdoms, of the evil days and evil times which were advancing with rapid pace. The relation is, very properly addreffed to that mirror of credulity, Sir Kenelm Digby, knight. Ir was my fortune,' fays the folemn hiftorian, to be, < in a late communication, where a gentleman spoke of a hideous, thing that happened in High Holborn; how one John Pennant, a young man of 21, being diffected after his death, there was a kind of ferpent, with divers tails, found in the left ventricle ' of his heart, which you know is the most defended part, being thrice thicker than the right, and is the cell which holds the pureft and most illuftrious liquor, the arterial blood and the vital fpirits. The ferpent was it feems three years ingendring, for fo long time he found himself indifpofed in the • breast; and it was observed that his eye, in the interim, grew, more sharp and fiery, like the eye of a cock, which is next the ferpent's eye in redness: fo that the fymptom of his inward disease might have been told by certain exterior rays and • fignatures. GOD preserve us from public calamities! for ferpentine • monsters have been often ill favored prefages. I remember in the Roman story, to have read how, when fnakes or ferpents, were found near the ftatues of their Gods, at one time about Jupiter's neck, another time about Minerva's thigh, there followed bloody civil wars after it.' THIS portentous story is given moft fcientifically by Dr. Edward May, in a thin quarto pamphlet of forty pages. The title-page will inform the reader of his various other titles, which, favor most strongly of quackery. A MOST CERTAINE AND TRVE RELATION OF A STRANGE MONSTER OR SERPENT, Found in the Left Ventricle of the By Edward May, Doctor of Philosophy LONDON: Printed by George Miller, MDCXXXIX. THE epiftle dedicatory is to the renowned peere of this king-. dom, Edward earle of Dorfet,' the book itself to Sir Theodore Maiherne, knight. In that he lays before him the wonderful cafe. He tells us that he was fent on October 7th, 1637, by Lady ́ Herris,, Herris, wife to Sir Francis Herris, knight, to diffect her nephew John Pennant, who had deceased the night before, to know the cause of his death. The doctor brought with him Mafter Jacob Heydon, furgeon, to affift in the enquiry. Mr. Heydon made incifion into the left ventricle of the heart, which was full of blood. On thorough examination, the monster was difcovered, the head of which was fo like to that of a ferpent, that Lady Herris shivered to see it. To judge by the prints, all the upper part of it was cylindrical; towards the lower part bifurcated, and each fork divided into five long and flender fibrillæ. I leave to the reader the perufal of the rest of Dr May's most curious difquifition. THIS is not the only inftance of fimilar appearances in the heart but we hear no more of ferpents; the name was changed to polypufes, to which, for their numerous ramifications, they might bear the resemblance. In our Philofophical Transactions are more than one paper on the fubject. In Mr. Lowthorp's Abridg. iii. p. 70, and tab. p. 120, is an account, and the figure of one found in the heart of a man at Oxford; and in Mr. Martyn's Abridg. ix. p. 135, is the account of feveral difcovered in numbers of failors who died immediately on their return from the West Indies. This paper was written by the celebrated Dr. Huxham; he quotes Malpighius, Bartholinus, Tulpius, and Pechlin, as giving inconteftible instances of the existence of polypi in the heart, in the stricteft fenfe. This opinion is now exploded. The only uncommon circumftance (my ingenious friend Dr. Haygarth affures me) is, that the left ventricle of the heart, and probably the aorta, which after death are ufually empty, were in these cases full of blood. The craffamentum, upon coagulation, had taken the form of the arteries in which it was contained. I BREAK a little into chronology, to conclude with an event relative to another of my house; of little moment indeed, but merely to give a picture of the barbarous days, even of the beginning of the laft century, which I collected from the journal kept by Peter Roberts, of St. Ajaph, before mentioned. He records, that on July 22d, 1615, Hugh Pennant, brother to Pyers Pennant, efq; of Bychton, died of a broken head given him at Denbigh, by Pyers Hughes: That in the year 1626, Rowland Evan, a vicar of St. Asaph, was killed at an ale-house in Llandrillo Eiderneon: That on October 34, 1628, Mr. Richard Thelwal was flain at his own house at Ruthen : And that, in 1634, one Foulkes, of Cilowen, killed his wife, and cut his own throat. BARBAROUS THE mention of ale-house tempts me to speak of a houfe of LLETTY GONEST. mine, by the fea-fide, in the township of Bychton, called Lletty Goneft, or the boneft houfe. It had been formerly in the highest repute for its excellent ale, brewed by a good ale-wife yclep'd Jane, of Lletty, whom I well remember. She acquired both fame and wealth, both of which I may fay fhe bequeathed to her defcendants; who to this day, by their own industry, continue to flourish on the effect of her's. THE house was originally built by one Smith, from Worcester, partly for the purposes of diftilling, and partly for a warehouse. I am told, that it occasionally had served for the place of confinement for impreffed men, at the time in which the colliers SINGULAR HEAD. SMUGGLING. had fuch great trade with Dublin. The ftrong bars in the lower windows favor that notion. ABOVE the door is a very fingular sculpture, cut in bas-relief, in stone, and let into the wall. One part is a ftrange chimerical figure of a monfter with four legs, and the head of an owl, fixing its claws in the side of a human head. The face is averted, and expreffing much agony. The eye-lids are drawn up, the eyes the fame, the mouth half opened, and the teeth clofely fixed together. The face is young, but has a pair of whiskers, and is far from being ill cut. It has the character of one of Le Brun's paffions, article Pain. It evidently never was defigned for this place, but feems originally to have been one of those fanciful gothic fculptures belonging to fome antient church. In the reign of King William, this houfe was remarkable for the violent hands laid on a vast feizure of French wines, to the amount of fixty pipes, which had been fmuggled into the great barn at Trelacre, in the parish of Llanafa, deftined for the use of the Welsh gentry in this and the neighboring counties. It muft be observed, that in thofe days port-wine was in very little ufe in our country. The officers had conveyed this prize with fafety as far as Lletty Goneft, where they intended to fleep that night. At midnight they were alarmed by the entry of multitudes of colliers, who tied every body in the house neck and heels. They removed the wine into other carriages, and conveyed it into places fo fecure that it never more could be heard of. Many of the colliers were observed to have rings on their fingers, and fine linen. In fact numbers of them were the gentlemen interested in the wine, and concerned in the re-capture, who mixed with the |